Let $X$ be an affine variety. Its coordinate ring $k[X]$ is a quotient of some overall polynomial ring $R$. With $R$, we can define algebraic varieties, the Zariski topology, etc. How much of that can we still do if we start with $k[X]$?
For example, we can look at the ideals of $k[X]$ and see their vanishing locii as subsets of $X$. Do we still have:
- weak nullstellensatz?
- a correspondence between algebraic sets and radical ideals, between varieties and prime ideals, etc.?
- a Noetherian topology/Noetherian domain?
It would be a tedious (though maybe informative) exercise to go through all of the results in my course notes and check that they still hold for $k[X]$. But is there a simpler way? Am I missing some obvious way to do this, or some place where this fails?